Thursday, August 7, 2014

Galactic Knights at Historicon #4: Defending the Phoenix

This was the last of the four scenarios I ran using the Galactic Knights rules, and was played out on Saturday night. It featured the Entomalians ATTACKing a Terran held planet, defended by a Space Station and supporting ships.

Entomalian Ships - played by

Squadron 1: Dreadnought, Attack Carrier, Battle Cruiser

Squadron 2: Battle Cruiser, 2 Cruisers

Squadron 3: Destroyer Leader, 2 Destroyers

Squadron 4: Destroyer Leader, 2 Destroyers

Terran Ships - played by Trond

Squadron 1: Dreadnought, 2 Cruisers

Squadron 2:Attack Carrier, 2 Destroyers

Squadron 3: Destroyer Leader, 2 Destroyers

Space Station Phoenix

Background

The Terrans have a mining colony on resource rich epsilon-Fermi, near the border of Entomalian space. The Entomalians plan to seize the outpost for their own use, and as a stepping stone to a broader invasion of Terran space.

Set Up

I used a playing area 5 feet wide by 6 feet deep. The Phoenix starts 12" (6 hexes) onto the table on the middle of the North side. The remaining Terran ships also start up to 12"/6 hexes onto the table at locations of the owning player's choosing, with an initial Drift of up to 1/4 of the Thrust of the slowest ship. The Space Station cannot move but can rotate its facing as much as desired during the Move phase of the turn.

Carnivoran Squadron 1 starts up to 12" (6 hexes) onto the table anywhere along the Northern edge, with an initial drift pf up to 1/4 the thrust of the ship with the lowest thrust in the fleet.

The Entomalians enter anywhere along the Southern table edge, up to 12' (6 hexes) on, with an initial drift up to 1/2 of the thrust of the slowest ship in the fleet.

Victory Conditions

The Entomalians must destroy the Phoenix. (the Phoenix is roughly equivalent to a Dreadnought in armament, with some additional weaponry, etc as it does not need either engines or Jump drive.

The Entomalians closed on the Phoenix as quickly as possible, in order to bring their Grav guns to bear. These shorter range weapons ignore the Terran shields. The Entomalian ships lack shields of any kind, but are heavily armored, and take more critical hist than average to destroy, so they are very tough in combat!.

"Scramble all fighters!"

The Terran warships have maneuvered their way to the rear of several of the Entomalians; their armor is weaker and no weapons bear directly to the rear.

This achieved some success, but the weight of the Entomalian firepower, especially once their Grav weapons came in range, proved to be too much for the Phoenix which was destroyed, although at a heavy cost to the bugs.

Here is the control sheet for the Phoenix as of the next to last turn before its destruction. I used the template in the Files section of the Galactic Knights Yahoo group. Rotating the station would have given it a bit more life by presenting a fresh armor zone to the majority of the attackers! If I were ti run the scenario again, I'd probably make it even a bit stronger, basing the design upon that of a Galactic Dreadnought, or perhaps even a Super Galactic Dreadnought (in the later case with some decreased escort forces)!